Māori-Pākehā Health Disparities: Can Treaty Settlements Reverse the Impacts of Racism?

Prepared by Camara Jones, September 1999

with funding from the sponsors of the Ian Axford (New Zealand) Fellowships in Public Policy

About the author

Camara Jones is Research Director for Social Determinants of Health and Equity in the Epidemiology and Analysis Program Office at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia. Camara is a family physician and epidemiologist whose work focuses on the impacts of racism on the health and well-being of the nation. From 1994 to 2000, she was Assistant Professor of Health and Social Behavior and of Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health. Camara received her BA in Molecular Biology from Wellesley College, her MD from the Stanford University School of Medicine, and both her Master of Public Health and her PhD in Epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health.

During Camara’s Ian Axford Fellowship exchange to New Zealand she was based at the Ministry of Health in Wellington, where she researched Māori-Pākehā health disparities and whether treaty settlements can reverse the impacts of racism.

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Prologue

The somewhat provocative topic of this work represents the confluence of four factors:

1. The observation of strong parallels between black-white disparities in the United States and Māori-Pākehā disparities in New Zealand in terms of health status, educational attainment, income, employment status and representation in correctional facilities (treatment by the justice system).
2. My work in the United States on the impacts of racism on health.
3. My analysis that intervention at the level of institutionalised racism is necessary in order to reverse the detrimental impacts of racism on a society.
4. My guess from half a world away that treaty settlements (under the Treaty of Waitangi) represented intervention at the level of institutionalised racism.

Chapter One of this report summarises the work I set out to do. Chapter Two presents my perspectives after eight months on the question: “Māori-Pākehā health disparities: can treaty settlements reverse the impacts of racism?” Chapter Three presents a new perspective on looking at health status by socio-economic status that I developed while working at the Ministry of Health. Chapter Four presents my views on the similarities and differences between the African-American and New Zealand Māori experiences.

Appendices at the end of the document include the text of the Treaty of Waitangi in both Māori and English, a draft proposal for reparations to African-Americans, a list of presentations that I made as an Ian Axford Fellow and a list of the media coverage of my work in New Zealand.

Table of contents

Acknowledgements
Prologue

1. Description of programme
2. Racism, Māori health and the Treaty of Waitangi: my perspective after eight months
3. Why socio-economic status is not the full explanation for health disparities.
4. Parallels and differences between the African-American and Māori experiences

Appendix A: Te Tiriti o Waitangi/The Treaty of Waitangi
Appendix B: Draft proposal for reparations to African-Americans
Appendix C: Talks delivered as an Ian Axford Fellow
Appendix D: Coverage of my work in the New Zealand media

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